Stations in standby mode that are associated with an access point (AP) must periodically wake up to receive a TIM (Traffic Indication Map) element, which is contained inside the beacon. The TIM element indicates whether the AP has buffered data for the station. However, the length of beacons has grown over time, and beacons are generally transmitted at a low (if not the lowest) PHY rate. Therefore, the cost of receiving beacons from a power consumption standpoint is high. This has an adverse effect on the battery life of handheld devices. Accordingly, various needs exist in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.